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(Stewart Pinkerton) wrote in message ...
On 16 Jan 2004 03:08:42 GMT, (Buster Mudd) wrote:

Though that doesn't quite explain how a Snake Oil Advocate would go
about separating the (quote-unquote) "objectivists" from their hard
earned +/- $4000.

Easy - just prove you can hear a difference.

Yet I got the impression from Bob Marcus' earlier statement if a
difference is really heard, it will be the result of
resistance-related (or perhaps inductance/capacitance related)
frequency response anomalies that the "objectivists" were allowing
that differences may be discernable, they were just attributable to
fundamentals of electricity rather than voodoo & flooby-dust.

If Joe Schmoe claims there is an audible difference
between, say, Home Depot 12awg zip cord ($0.25/foot) and Tara Labs
"The One" ($500/foot), & the ABX/DBT proctors claim "if a difference
is really heard, it will be the result of resistance-related (or
perhaps inductance/capacitance related) frequency response anomalies",
shouldn't the proper response be

"Ok, whatever"

...and then everyone just goes home & listens to music, in complete
agreement. Where does this whole You Only *Think* You Can Hear The
Difference challenge come into play?

Easy, just sit down, *listen* to the two cables, and *prove* that you
can hear a difference when you don't *know* which one's connected.
That's all you have to do.

So is it safe to conclude that you (Mr. Pinkerton) & Mr. Marcus are
not in complete agreement on what the claims of the "Snake Oil
Advocates" actually are, or how one would go about disproving their
allegations? Bob says there might be differences but those
differences have their origins in basic principles, not magical
properties; Stewart says there aren't differences, period. Have I got
that right?

What, you are seriously suggesting that adding a couple of buck's
worth of passive components to 12 AWG 'zipcord', in order to provide
accurate level-matching to *any* $500 a foot cable, is somehow
*cheating*?!

Frankly I believe that if you add anything to the DUT you have
compromised the test. Heisenberg & all that rot. This is what
intrigues me most about this whole $4k cable challenge: not the claims
of either camp, but the specifics of any testing methodology that
would be endorsed by both camps. If I thought I could hear a
difference between component A & component B, and a skeptic told me
"Prove it by discerning a difference between component A & component
B+C" I would feel as if they had misunderstood my original claim. (or
that they were stacking the deck, as it were.)

I understand the absolute necessity of level matching at a reference
frequency. Yet you insist that if 2 cables which level match at one
reference frequency do not level match at another, that aberration
must be compensated for. I don't understand is how you can
legitimately claim that this test methodology is a fair AB comparison,
when you are no longer comparing A to B.